On 29 October 2026, Google announced inline file preview and editing in Gemini, including PDF on web and mobile. A clear preview is useful, but it does not establish the reading order of text supplied to an assistant. If extracted text alternates between two columns, a summary can join sentences that were never adjacent. This is a check for that failure mode, not a report of a confirmed Gemini incident.
The announcement covers personal Google accounts, Workspace and Workspace Individual where Gemini is available, in its supported languages. It lists PDF preview and editing on web and mobile; other listed file formats are web-only. Start with one permitted page and a short requested summary. The new preview does not change the need to compare the assistant’s first claim with the original.
Trace one short paragraph
Choose a page you are allowed to process. Read the first paragraph in the visual document, then compare the extracted text in sequence. Mark where the left column should continue and where the right column begins. Keep headings and footnotes identifiable instead of flattening everything into one stream.
Adobe’s Reading Order documentation distinguishes the order of content regions from their visual appearance. A tagged or selectable PDF still needs checking; different extraction tools may interpret its structure differently.
Supply verified text boundaries
If necessary, provide a checked section with explicit column or paragraph boundaries and retain the page reference. Ask the assistant to summarize only that supplied sequence. Compare its first claim with the original paragraph. Do not silently repair or retag the source file in place. Keep the original and note the extraction method so a later revision can reproduce the check.